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Wednesday, 30 April 2014

When we have been deeply wounded, especially when there has been trauma in those first crucial (crucible) years of life, the wounds go deep & sit in the cellular memory, we may not have any conscious idea as to why we react the way we do or even how we really feel about particular things. I always recognised my own misery & voicelessness but I had no idea that I was also trapped in grief...literally grief-stricken. At first I lost my mother (brutally & abruptly) & simultaneously my core family of origin. I had no idea then, that from the age of 6, I would struggle for survival, to be me for the next 47 years. The losses continued, marriage after marriage (fathers), "home" after home, my brother's marriages-his wives, my friends- abruptly gone. All gone forever. Connection broken...

I was lost.

Realistically, this kind of damage, (let alone the compounded insult & impact of narcissistic abuse), are very difficult to recover from & healing will take a very long time.

My awakening this week was to realise that I am worth nourishing.

All those years I was starving, starving of real food, emotional support, acknowledgement or love; desperate.. for simple touch, assurance & a sense of belonging. I needed to know that I was safe & wanted, but that never arrived for me. Never given.

Even when wounds- emotional or physical- are cared for tenderly, the healing takes time, & poking at the injured place in our heart or on our body to see if the healing is "done" just inflames the injury & slows healing. When we trust that healing will happen, we can be patient. When we feel no such trust, we may need to lean into the experience of others whose seeing is not coloured by pain right now. We are built for healing- and I wonder sometimes if the time it takes is. . . .purposeful, a chance to learn how to treat the injuries in ourselves, others & the world with tenderness, nourishment & compassion. ~Oriah (Pic by the wonderful SimpLee Serene )

"When you choose self-loathing, you separate from the­ essential self and cut yourself off from the truth that flows naturally within you. Your connection to the source of your inherent goodness dries up and you lose the insight to the path of your highest good. This separation causes a feeling of powerlessness, an inability to act in alignment with your most authentic desires. You lose yourself and the ability to love the one you are. In energy medicine terms, you literally disconnect from your heart center and form a separate identity fueled by pain, fear and self-loathing."

"When you first start to wake up to the ways in which the conditioning from your childhood has influenced who you think you are, it's easy to fall into blame and judgment of your parents and others who influenced you when you were young. Yes, it's helpful to illuminate these patterns so you recognize that many conditioned behaviors are either the mirror of your parents or a rebellion against them. Underneath this conditioning lies the authentic YOU.

Once you realize where these patterns came from and stop identifying with your conditioning, you loosen the grip of how these patterns play out in your life, and this frees you. But you'll fall into another kind of prison if you start blaming those who conditioned you. Instead, open your heart. Realize that your parents were just as imprisoned by these conditioned patterns as you have been! They inherited them from their parents and passed them on to you, not because they're bad people or you were bad, but because they're unconscious. They know not what they do.

But you are blessed because you are no longer unconscious, so you now have a responsibility to break the patterns.

Adyashanti calls these conditioned patterns "generational suffering"- the anger, depression, addiction, abuse, resentment, bigotry, hatred, and anxiety that gets passed on from generation to generation. Adya says, "One of the interesting things to note about generational suffering is that it's not personal. In other words, it's more like a virus that infects the people within a family. It's a way of suffering that infects the family and then gets passed on, almost like the flu or a cold, through future generations. When you're born, without even knowing it, you're actually being handed this generational pain. In response, you will complain about it, think it's terrible, and otherwise resist it. But by doing so, you will come to see that denial or complaints about this pain only makes it sink more deeply into your being."

The good news is that you don't have to infect others with what has been passed to you. When you do the personal and spiritual growth work to heal from this suffering, you heal not only yourself; you cure the virus. You end the lineage, heal your family, and raise the vibration of the planet in doing so.

This requires radical compassion. It's so much easier to blame and judge those who hurt you than to forgive them. But by holding onto the resentment, you keep yourself in prison. The choice is yours. Will you choose to heal?

You can do this, darling. Your heart is that big. As Sara Bareilles sings, "Show me how big your brave is." You've got this. We believe in you."

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Since I set my intention to "bloom" at the beginning of this year, my life has been plunged in to the deep. Many times, I thought that I might drown, but in this moment I have come up for sweet, fresh air..

& I breath deep & slowly.

It is often reflected that in the struggle & the places of pain & confusion that we go deepest & learn the most; I feel certain that this is true.

Having not found the answers, release or support all these years in the conventional places, I have cast my net wider in these last months & gathered in knowledge & understanding that is beginning to look like genuine hope & give me tools that I have never had before.

Just yesterday, when I opened a page & saw Susan Brown's "Eve"...I was so moved & startled that I burst in to tears. I saw myself looking back in the mirror..my soul, my essence.

I have now come to understand that you get really, really messed up when you are the child of a narcissistic abuser. I have been looking at myself reflected in the mirror my father held up, all these years. What I saw was his disgust & disdain. I have been washed & washed with his anger, rejection, dumping & blame & most of all, I realised this week...I was trained & conditioned to carry a sense of guilt about almost everything..EVERYTHING!!! It's hardest of all, I believe, to escape the prison the narcissist creates when you are a daughter. When you are in a romantic relationship with someone as an adult..you made that choice to enter in to the liaison & even wives can come & go; but a daughter schooled by a clever narcissist is in an untenable & very painful position. There are no divorce proceedings for father/daughter relationships. Divorce or the ending of an adult relationship provides a barrier, a buffer, a justification for your distance, boundary settings & new choices. In the parental trap...the power was never yours, you never had a voice & you didn't believe, deep down that you had the right to exist, so you are nothing.

As I have struggled with my feelings of self-disgust & hating the little girl..I couldn't even look at her & I felt no compassion..why?? Was I so awful, so terrible, so unlovable? Why did I see her as ugly & feel disgust & dis-passion? Because I had been conditioned, systematically through 50 odd years. All the private abuse sessions listing all my wrong doings...out of nowhere, unprovoked, unbidden, unjustified. I was fat & that was disgusting, I was thoughtless, I wasn't a team player & I didn't pull my weight. I was lazy & I should have known, I was useless & stupid & let everybody down............

Not one word of love or affection, not one kind touch or gesture.

And never, ever through all the decades..an apology.

But no more.

No longer will I look in that mirror..

allow myself to be perpetually locked in the cupboard of shame.

I have the right to be here,

to be me,

just as I am.

These snippets below have come to me today.

They strengthen my truth & understanding.

I am not alone.

Elan Golomb's book..

Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists & their Struggle for Self

In this compelling book, Elan Golomb identifies the crux of the emotional and psychological problems of millions of adults. Simply put, the children of narcissist -- offspring of parents whose interest always towered above the most basic needs of their sons and daughters -- share a common belief:

"Most people don’t understand that recovery from narcissistic abuse is a traumatic experience. The one thing I hear more than anything else from my clients is “nobody understands my pain; not even the therapists I have seen.

If you are suffering from such a trauma, people will tell you “just get over it already!” Therapists will work to help you with your self esteem but most often won’t address the trauma. Ironically your therapist will often be the one who tells you the person you are struggling to overcome is a narcissist. Your therapist is often the one to diagnose you with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But how do you really cope? That remains a mystery for sufferers and therapists alike.

The clear answer is to get away from that person. The common thought is when you are no longer engaging with the narcissist in your life, you can make a speedy recovery. What people don’t often realize is that narcissism is like a virus that takes hold in your psyche and won’t let up. It is the toxic gift that keeps on giving. You can’t seem to get away from it; even after that person is long gone. It is as if the narcissist projects and dumps into your energy field all of his toxic garbage and then cuts off from you and moves on before it can catch back up with him, or her. You are left holding the bag! You are left recovering from the virus and it is a sticky virus. It is a long journey to recovery.

The journey involves post traumatic stress disorder, obsessive thinking, low energy, lack of vitality, heartbreak, betrayal, deception, feeling devalued and discarded, feeling abandoned, feeling replaced, feeling lost, crazy, frustrated, insecure, needy, and addicted. You may be feeling guilty as if you were to blame for it all. You may be feeling deep grief and sadness, emptiness, and loneliness. You may have lost your will to live. You may feel invisible, like you don’t matter. You may even feel you don’t exist at all. You are most likely feeling the lack of closure. You may feel a strong desire for revenge; wanting that person to pay for his or her sins against you. You may have lost everything, including your children, your home, your livelihood, your money and your health. You may feel that God has it out for you and possibly even lost your faith that there is any kind of God at all. You may be going through a dark night of the soul; a descent into darkness deeper than anything you have ever experienced. You may have dreams and nightmares about the narcissist in your life and feel haunted by the mere thought of him or her. You want nothing more than to get away but there is no place to run. You are plagued by a constant state of anxiety that won’t go away. You may have tried everything you could possibly think of to alleviate the symptoms and bring you some kind of peace.

Life as you know it is over. There is no going back to what once was. There has been a death; a death of a part of yourself it seems the narcissist has taken from you. You have lost a big piece of your soul and you want it back. You feel tied to that person through an invisible psychic cord that is very difficult to cut. Each time you try it seems the narcissist comes back either energetically or physically. Your energy is constantly being vampired; your life force energy; your lifeblood, sucked dry."

“While much psychology emphasizes the familial causes of angst in humans, the cultural component carries as much weight, for culture is the family of the family. If the family of the family has various sicknesses, then all families within that culture will have to struggle with the same malaises. There is a saying cultura cura, culture cures. If the culture is a healer, the families learn how to heal; they will struggle less, be more reparative, far less wounding, far more graceful and loving. In a culture where the predator rules, all new life needing to be born, all old life needing to be gone, is unable to move and the soul-lives of its citizenry are frozen with both fear and spiritual famine.”― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman ArchetypeRoot Chakra Affirmations:

I am grateful for all the challenges that helped me to grow and transform.

I trust in the goodness of life.

I make choice that are healthy and good for me.

I trust myself.

I love life.

The root or base chakra is the place of anchorage & grounding & I bet it is in real chaos when you are a narcissistic abuse survivor.

"Anger always seems to be directed towards another individual but the real truth about anger is anger is not angry at anyone else besides self. (concerning narcissism at least)

We are angry at ourselves for being gullible and naive. We are angry at ourselves for being deceived, taken advantage of and hurt. We are angry at ourselves for trusting and believing even when the signs were pointing in the opposite direction. We are angry at ourselves for not taking a stance and making a difference when we should've; we are angry at ourselves for lacking courage and determination.

Forgive yourself for being naive, forgive yourself for being blind, forgive yourself for being gullible, forgive yourself for lacking courage, forgive yourself for all of your shortcomings so that you are finally able to be free. Free from the anger that is held within, free from the anger that you believe is caused by another individual when the real reason why that anger hasn't been released is because it is directed towards self. Self is being blamed for not protecting itself (you) the way it should've, for not seeing the obvious when it should've, for not helping and making a difference when it should've, for not having the courage and determination when it should've. Free yourself from all the anger and hate directed towards self. Don't be deceived that the anger you hold within is directed towards another individual, know that you are angry at yourself and let it go by forgiving yourself."

Oluwaseun Simoné

"The back stabbing and smear campaign. Again just a few comments on this phenomenon that a narcissist plans out so carefully to administer more punishment, cover up their abuse, destroy people's character, use as a "woe-be-me" line to suck in new supply, and many other reasons to carry on their psychopathy to be all they can be in their battle against the world. My point is how many times have you heard the narcissist say that they have never said a bad word about you to anyone, but yet you have proof of their destruction coming at you from every possible direction, even in writing. Then they counter it with comments that we should move on because we are scorned, obsessed, seeking attention, and trouble makers - that's the kettle calling the pot black. I would always get mentally ill, or I was the one that had affairs, or my narcissist was praying for me, etc., etc., etc., added to the list. Well of course we all know they are quite possibly the biggest liars in the world or even the universe, and there is no way of getting around what they lie about because in their heads it is carved in stone. They could open a conversation with a list of how we are probably the worst person in the world and debase us to our face, but in the next statement say they have always talked kindly about us and NEVER EVER in a negative way - then say "tell your family I said hello." Indeed, that is what my family wants to hear as if the narcissist totally forgets that they abused them as well. Along the same lines we are left to deal with the back stabbing/smear campaign, while they run off like the cowards, even crying more about how it was us that was abusing them with the one or two supporters that believe their BS. First off (in my case) one person could never be everything my narcissist made me out to be, or they would have put me away years ago. Second, they are actually projecting what THEY have actually done to us, and we know they are the guilty ones here, but we end up damned if we do or damned if we don't deal with their integrity assassination - either way we will seem guilty by association. In reality it is best to completely step away from these monsters and let the chips fall where they may because we can't pick up all of the pieces because we generally never know who or whom they have spread their vicious lies to and what they said. In their delusional world there are no rules or laws they abide by, so they generate an incredulous story about us and even believe it - they forget this even when they talk to us and tell us their made up stories like we don't know the truth. Generally we have lived on this earth long enough that most people know our characters well enough to walk away from a narcissist that shows signs of being rabid, and these are the people that count in our lives, not the ones that get charged up with the narcissists destruction. I go back to the statement above that a narcissist lives in a disordered world full of convoluted lies and delusions about us and especially about themselves and that is written in stone in their heads - you can't make them any part of your life or think they will do anything but continue to abuse us if you allow them to. I learned many moons back that NO CONTACT was the only way to get them out of your lives - unfortunately until I learned this I had to endure a few months of crazy making - but I processed it in a manner that help me define the psychopathy and find out the truth about this person. If I could offer one piece of advice it would be this; from the moment you know they are a narcissist go no contact and never look back - it is so much better on the other side!!! Greg" from the Facebook page After Narcissistic Abuse There is Light, Life & Love.

"Regarding the critical injury to adult children with narcissistic parents. Interestingly, many such people have no problem finding "love."

But deep affection does not satisfy them unless accompanied by the granting of "voice" by a powerful person. As a result, adult children of narcissistic parents often go from bad relationship to bad relationship in search of "voice."

For parents, the implications are clear. Love is not enough. Client after client has taught me this unequivocal lesson:

If you want to raise emotionally healthy children, you must give them the gift of "voice."

(About the author: Dr. Grossman is a clinical psychologist and author. )"

"One of the most profound lessons of narcissistic abuse is getting over the loss of our true voice (our essence) being transgressed by the over-controlling, over-powering, reality dominating, and identity replacing projections of the narcissist."